


Whatever It Takes

by Saerus2665



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Betrayal, Eating Disorders, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Keith is smart and strong af but he's got the hostage survival skills of a peanut, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) Whump, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Lance is trying his very best, Langst, M/M, Pre-Season 06, Temporarily Blinded Keith, Temporarily Mute Lance, The teams a lot smarter than Lance is giving them credit for, Violence, dont look at me, klangst, they're not gonna abandon their blue boy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-07-05 16:06:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15867057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saerus2665/pseuds/Saerus2665
Summary: Lance wished he was strong enough to just let himself waste away in his cell, he wished he was strong enough yell and scream and shout obscenities and challenges in a true Keith fashion until the guards came bursting through the door and finally took him out.But his mouth wouldn’t work and his heart beat too quick in his chest and he just. Couldn’t.Or: Lance ends up trapped in the hands of the Galra after betraying team Voltron in order to save them. Fully realizing that he may very well die in here Lance is comforted by the fact that at least he was able to save his friends...That is, until one day an all too familiar Blade member gets tossed into his prison cell with a blindfold strapped to his face. Lance now has to focus on trying to save the life of the only person left to pilot the red lion. He's determined to get Keith out alive, and there’s a fleeting chance that he might be able to do it, but that is only if Keith can learn to sit down and shut up, and only if the Galra don’t discover the reason their druids can’t access the bond between Lance and his former lion, only if Keith doesn’t find him out and try to kill him first.





	1. To Ashes...

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is literally self-indulgent and I'm under no impression it comes off as anything else. Its been sitting in my docs for forever now and I figured I'd release it out into the wild. Everyone might be a little OOC in this but who knows, I wrote this when I was sad. Please don't take this too seriously.

Lance McClain was a strategist, first and foremost. He was a lot of things, the right arm of voltron, the red paladin - or at least one of them, a tremendous flirt, a mama’s boy-

 

 _A coward_.

 

Lance was a strategist and that’s why this next bit was important.

 

Everyone was shouting to each other over the comms as the Galra fighters swarmed them. The noise of it was reverberating in Lance's ears, making his head hurt and spin even more than it already was thanks to the unavoidable hit they had just taken (it was either a hit to their side or a direct hit to Pidge’s face and he and Red hadn’t even needed to think about which option to take). The force of the blast had jerked Lance hard in his seat in Red’s cockpit as Red went spiraling to the outer edges of the battle currently being fought between the lions of Voltron and a fleet of fighters from one of the Galra’s largest destroyer ships.

 

Lance had to take a few seconds to regain himself after he finally got them to spinning. He shook his head, trying to dissipate the ringing in his ears, while also scanning Red's control panel for any signs of major damage to her systems.  Several warning lights flashed up at him from the panel, but thankfully none were absolutely critical. 

 

 "Lance!" Pidge shouted, maybe for the second time. She sounded a lot more panicked than she normally would.

 

Lance unclenched his jaw and cleared his throat, trying to get his reeling brain to refocus and feeling Red attempt to do the same. “I’m good" Lance finally got out. Multiple sighs of relief. "I'm good." 

 

Red slowly worked to steady herself, her systems flickering as she came back online. The hit hadn't been catastrophic but they needed to be careful now to not take another. Lance rubbed at his throbbing wrist as Red piloted herself back into an upright position, he'd jerked it wrong against the controls when they'd been hit, but he didn't think it was broken. Once Red was ready, she let him now with a roar, and Lance sat up straight and gripped her controls. They'd only been out of commission for a couple of minutes. His breathing steadied, matching to the pulse of Red against his mind. The bruising ache in his chest and the pain in his wrist diminished under Red's fiery determination to fly back into battle. Red’s instinct  licked like flames, bright and hot through their bond, spilling over into Lance driving him to race forward and just _fight._

 

But.

 

Lance’s arm tensed to grip the control, ready to thrust them forward into the fray, but he stopped himself at the very last second. Something stopped him. Something caught his eye on the battlefield before them, something different. Something wrong.

 

Red’s determination flared into irritation that burned up the controls to snarl back at Lance for his hesitation, making Lance’s stomach twist but he held his ground.

“Wait, Red!" He urged through clenched teeth, "somethings not right!” Something was different with the way the Galra were fighting this battle, different from all the other fights they’d had before.

 

Shiro’s voice came over the comm a short second later, tense with a falsified coolness that showed really just how bad the fighting was getting. Lance could see the other lions ground together amidst a swarm of the Galra fighters. “Lance, we need you out here!”

 

Hunk added “Buddy? -alright!?” Lance looked down at his comms screen. It flashed in and out with a broken connection.

 

“We ne- help, Lance! I can’t- them o- me!”  That was Allura. Something was wrong with his comms.

 

‘ _Paladin!’_ Red snapped at him, frustrated.

 

 _“_ Wait” Lance said desperately back. His hands were sticky with sweaty through his armor in their tight grip around the piloting controls, prepared to make a move the instant he figured out what was going on. He leaned even more forward in his seat, trying get a better look at the bursts of orange and blasts of blue littering the the vast expanse of space in front of them.  

 

In his life before he joined the Garrison and rocketed into space in the head of a giant alien space lion, Lance had always loved solving puzzles and finding patterns. It was one of the reasons he had been good enough to get into the Garrison to begin with. While his applied skills hadn’t been the top of the class, and his mathematics and engineering practicals were pathetically low, his logic and reasoning skills had made up for almost all of it. He’d always had a knack for assessing _why_ things were where they were, tracing phenomena straight back to their origin and recognizing patterns sometimes before the teachers could even explain the puzzle to them.

 

Right now, the Lions of Voltron were in deep shit, and honestly, when _weren’t_ they.  But more than that, the Galra fighters were looping around the swarm of lions, making dramatic dives before swerving out of the way of their blasters. Their rotating evasive maneuvers had left the lions of voltron cramped together into one area, limiting their room to fight back. Lance could actually probably pilot through them right now and they might even be able to form Voltron.  

 

But what made him stop was that the Galra weren’t...they weren’t actually firing into the group of lions.

 

Lance watched as four Galra fighter ships slammed into the side of Hunk just as the yellow lion broke out from the group, sending him crashing back into both Shiro and Allura.

 

With a sudden horror, Lance realized, _t_ _hey’re corralling_ _them._

 

At the same time, a group of Galra fighters broke out of the swarm and finally headed towards Red. Lance finally moved. He slammed the controls forward, Red took off like a bolt, but he didn't pilot her in the direction of the other lions.

 

 _Then where are we going?_ Red’s voice demanded, frustrated but also receptive. Lance was grateful that she was restraining herself enough to listen to him right now.

 

With the fighters on their tail, Lance turned Red sharply to take out two of them with two shots from Red's cannon right before Red acted on her own and took out the other two with her teeth and claws. Red growled in his head as the blaze of the resulting explosion faded. Lance piloted her back around to scan the battle again, this time from a different angle, quickly tracking the locations of the Galra fighters and making note of the destroyer still hovering behind them.

 

Absently, while his mind raced, Lance also noted the lack of sound coming from his comms. Fear settled, cool and hard in the pit of his stomach. The other lions were still moving, so his friends weren’t dead, but...Lance couldn’t help but think this is what it would sound like if they were.

 

“Red,” Lance said stiffly, catching himself drifting. He tried to clear his head and stifle the feeling in his gut, “We need to get our medium range communications back up and we need to scan the area. We’re the only ones not in that fray, we need to figure this out...”

 

He glanced over at the planet next them. It was covered in a dense layer of swirling clouds and storms that formed into huge pale spirals visible from space. If they weren’t being attacked by an overwhelming amount of Galra fighters, Lance might have found it beautiful. Coran had the castle ship down of the surface, evacuating prisoners from a Galra camp Voltron had just freed. Judging by the amount of prisoners that had to be evacuated, Lance knew that they couldn’t rely on the castle for any promising back-up at least for at least a while longer.

 

The planet itself was large enough to have three moons, one of which was on the other side of the planet. The other two moons were close together, caught in each other's gravity, spinning around each other as they circled the planet, just off from the battle.

 

Red’s finished her scan and it brought back nothing except for her fire-hot annoyance and almost nauseating impulse to turn back into the fight. It was like being a voice of reason for Keith all over again. Keith’s lion was almost a literal embodiment of the other paladin’s impulsiveness and ferocity. The only exception being that Red actually _listened_ to Lance, which still to this day genuinely surprised him. Lance wonders all the time if the only reason he could even fly Red was because he worked with Keith as a teammate first. He wonders too if Red’s situation was the same way. Maybe the only reason she could work with Lance was because she was also working with him while Keith was. It was a gratuitous thought that made him miss Keith and also made him aware that his attention disorder wasn’t negated even in the heat of battle.

 

Right.

 

“We can’t just head back in there." He sighed, because he liked it just as much as she did, but it was the truth. They'd be sitting ducks until Coran got here if all five lions were trapped in that swarm. Lance could try to take them out from here but the fighters seemed so concentrated on keeping the other lions together, that none of them had broken away again to try and come after him. That but Lance some time but he knew the moment he started shooting into the fray he'd be back on their radar. He had to use what precious time he had to figure this out. "The Galra are lining them up for a reason” Lance said, "We can't just walk in to whatever their trying to do."

 

Lance pulled off his helmet as he concentrated, the static of the comms becoming too much for his nerves to handle. Both his medium and long range communication sensors were out, which meant he’d had to get back within the swarm of fighters and within range of the other lions to even talk to any of his teammates. Still, Lance switched the main channel in Red’s pit to short range communications, just incase one of them broke out to reach Lance or Lance managed to _figure this out_.

 

The hum of Red’s cockpit replaced the grating noise of static from his helmet and that helped temper his panic from climbing just a bit. Lance looked back out at the battle.

 

They were lining them up for a reason.

 

_Why?_

 

The Galra destroyer didn’t have an ion cannon. Lance scanned the shape of the massive ship. It might have been one of the destroyers they’d faced earlier in their battles and maybe they’d taken it out then, but then again, this one was a oddly shaped too. It still had the same destroyer shape, but it was wider and fatter than the others they’d encountered. It lingered in front of the other moon still, out of range of the lion’s laser blasters, hovering at a slightly higher position than the swarm of fighters and lions nearby.

 

Lance leaned his head to the side and he focused on that, the odd level the destroyer was hovering at.

 

A few slow motion ticks went by.

 

Then it clicked.  

 

Lance’s heart froze to ice in his chest.

 

A feeling of strikingly sharp and unfathomable feeling of dark _dread_ spread throughout Lance as he realized everything at once. His hair stood at nape of his neck and he gasped out loud. The position of that Galra destroyer was slightly higher than the rest of the battle- _out of the way._  The high arcing patterns of the Galra fighters, overwhelming in numbers but still only engaging the lions to keep them in one place- they were _staying out of the way._

 

It was only a matter of following simple trajectory after that. Red hummed fire bright and serious at the edges of his thoughts as she followed his thoughts as Lance traced the imaginary track from the lions back towards…

 

The two moons.

 

Gravitational distortion.

 

Red pulled the screen up automatically and zoomed in on the dark space between the two moons. Lance felt as though the entire cockpit of red was splitting down the middle and his tiny existence was simply shattering as he took in the sight of a modified Galra destroyer equipped at the head of its hull with a unique and particularly lethal looking mechanism that Lance just knew was capable of firing something catastrophic into the group of other lions.

 

Red’s blank shock mirrored his own, but for only a second, before it dissolved into an absolutely blistering flame of rage. Lance moved quick and yanked her control backwards, just as she made to charge forward on her own.

 

“We can’t take that Red!” He shouted when Red roared back at him in his head, “Even if we run straight into it, its massive! We can’t stop it!”

 

They would need Voltron to take it out and Lance would have to rejoin the battle to get to them and he would have to try to take out the fighters before that cannon fired for them to form it.

 

 _We can take them long range!_ Red cried back, _y_ _ou have my canon, you know their fighting style. We can hold them off long enough for you to tell the rest of them what’s going on._

 

“Yeah, but”- Lance began to respond, ' _what if there’s not time'_ was what Lance was going to say but as if the universe read his thoughts, the telltale sparks began flickering between the two extended prongs on the new weapon on the destroyer ship.

 

 _We have to do something! Now!_ Red cried. Her rage, worry and aggravation blistered against the unstable anxiety riddled patience Lance was frantically trying to push her way.

 

Lance knew the castle wouldn’t be done in time. Lance knew that he wasn’t close enough to warn the other paladins in time.

 

Lance knew even if he fired with everything Red had, even if they rocketed full force forward into the prongs of the cannon that, there was still the chance they wouldn’t stop it. It would still be in position to…

 

A red blip appeared in his empty communication log. Lance and Red were close enough to the Galra ship to pick up their communication signals.

 

Lance paused and stared down at the new dot. A new idea began turning over in his head.

 

 _“Paladin, no!”_ Red snarled the instant she saw the idea in his head and _quiznack_ she was so much like Keith, but Lance didn’t see another way out of this.

 

“Red please. We have to do something _now_ ” Lance was borderline begging. His panicked edges and frayed nerves were finally spilling over and all the false patience and calmness he’d been trying to push to Red now seemingly fell to pieces around them because _what other option did they have_?

 

 _“We must think of something else_ -” Red still argued.

 

“There is nothing else, Red!” Lance almost screamed because he was watching the purple crackle of lightning build between the prongs of the cannon and he knew it’d be ready to fire soon and that the castle couldn’t be there in time and that his friends were going to _die_ if he didn’t….

 

 _“_ **_You’re_ ** _going to die, Paladin."_

 

The stillness in Red’s voice startled him enough to break his desperate panic, it was quiet and firm and marked with realization and even Red’s fear. Fear wasn’t something he’d thought he’d ever feel from Red. It was strange and foreign and it settled in the back of Lance’s throat somehow feeling even worse than his own.

 

Lance made himself take a shuddering gulp of breath and choking down whatever else he wanted to say.

 

They were out of time.

 

Lance gripped the controls and steered Red closer to the Galra destroyer.

 

_We cannot form Voltron without a red paladin._

 

But Lance never really was the red paladin was he.

 

The real red paladin was light years away being useful in a number of countless ways that Lance could not ever hope to be. Lance had known it was only a matter of time before Red went back to Keith. Now he just had to make sure Red got out of this to be able to give her back.

 

Lance swallowed. He’d get Red out of this. He’d get them all out of this. 

 

Red had gone quiet, most likely realizing her words weren’t swaying her paladin. Unsettled embers of worry and frustration burned at the edges of Lance’s thoughts but she said nothing else to him and he felt nothing else from her.

 

Letting loose one final shaky breath of determination in an attempt to quell the shaking he felt throughout his entire body, Lance opened his video feed and activated the recording feature. He didn't have a lot of time, but he hoped his team would eventually think to check his pilots log.

 

Thirty seconds later, Lance hailed the Galra ship.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ten minutes later, four brilliant blazes of red flame streak through the silence of space, spearing straight through the arcs of the swarming Galra fighters and striking each of the four lions of Voltron.

 

Shiro lurched against the restraints in the seat of Black with the impact of the sudden blast. The crack of his head against his chair was resounding and hard enough that his mind goes completely blank for a second.

 

The Black lion sailed backward, rolling through the stillness of space, head over heels for a long moment.

 

Shiro’s breathing was rough and heavy when he eventually managed to come back to himself. The control panel of black flickered in and out like a broken television screen. It took another second of him fighting against the pain in his head and the blackness encroaching into his vision before Shiro finally managed to lift his arm back to Black's controls pilot her out of her spiral. The other paladins nearby had fallen silent after each of the other three blasts had impacted. Black regained enough stability to turn herself towards the source of the blast but she shied away woundedly from the effort to do much more. The drone of multiple warning alarms came from all over Black’s control display and the red glow of hazard lights bathed the cockpit in red. With his head still swimming and slipping further and further down the slope of unconsciousness, Shiro barley managed to focus his gaze out the cockpit, past the swarm of retreating Galra fighters, to see….

 

Red.

 

The heat canon dissolved from the red lion’s back. In the next second, its jaws opened. A small speck that was the current red paladin tumbled out into the void of space. A Galra ship slowly came into view. Shiro’s vision clouded black for a moment. He struggled back to the surface of consciousness to watch the yellow light fade from Red lions’ eyes and a beam of purple appear to encompass its frame.

 

Fading fast and mind still spinning, Shiro couldn’t do anything more than utter “No.” out to the stillness of Black’s cockpit. The black lion too sparked in fury, but her anger was tired and her systems were still too broken. The other paladins in their lions still floated unmoving in the space around him, the comms silent.

 

Shiro’s consciousness feathered out like a line pulled too tight. He winced at the flash of bright purple light that lit up Black’s cockpit as the Galra ship warped away. It was bright enough that it flashed again behind his eyes as they slipped shut once again.

 

The last thing he remembered seeing was the castle ship blasting towards them.

 

Shiro’s grip on Black’s controls went lax as consciousness finally slipped away from him.

 

“Lance…”

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  


The other thing about Lance McClain was that he also had terrible horrible, no good, very bad luck. He’d adopted that term ever since the day he’d fell down the stairs in his first childhood home and broke his arm. His mother had read him the children’s book that coined the phrase by the same title next to his bedside at the hospital and he’d used it since.

 

Terrible horrible, no good, very bad luck.

 

Which is why he was so surprised his plan worked.

 

The short conversation he overheard between bouts of consciousness confirmed it for him; Voltron had gotten away. Lance hadn’t needed to stay awake to hear anything else.

 

He’d done it. His friends were safe.

 

Lance didn’t remember much after he’d blasted each of his team mates with enough force to put each of their lions out of commission (something he had zero doubts would continue to haunt his nightmares for the rest of his short future).

 

He’d also shut Red out.

 

He’d done it once before, with Blue. When he first switched over to Red, after Blue’s rejection, and he could still feel Blue’s thoughts and emotions swirling into his mind. Lance would be lying if he said it was wasn’t at least in part a childish and selfish response to his own lion rejecting him in the middle of battle. He still felt guilt about how resolutely he’d shut Blue out every time he looked at her, every time he had to walk by her in the hangar. He hadn’t even said goodbye.

 

He hadn’t said goodbye to Red this time either. He knew she was hesitant of the plan from the start, and he knew that if she felt his fear and panic and repeated thoughts of how _terrible_ of an idea this was, she might not make her escape before the Galra could reach her. Shutting her out was the only way he could be entirely sure his weakness and fear didn’t stop Red from fleeing; the last thing he needed was to drag her down with him.

 

Ejecting himself out into space was not something he ever wanted to experience again because even with the specialized alien tech in the paladin armor, he still felt so _cold_  and the empty stillness of the universe around him felt like a sinister blankness wrapping around his entire being. Lance had tried to make himself breathe steadily but it was pointless as he floated there in the blankness of space. For a few seconds he thought maybe the Galra would shoot at him then to take him out, or leave him just floating there in the emptiness of space. His fear had been so blindingly hot that Lance hadn’t feel anything but relief once he was caught in the tractor beam and brought onboard the galra ship.

 

Lance had only had the briefest glimpse of the Galra commander in the ship that picked up him afterwards, but the subsequent blow to the back of his head that came a second later pretty effectively blurred everything that came after that.

 

Lance had woken up on his side on gritty hard floor of a Galran prison cell, his arms cuffed in front of him, with a blindfold pulled tight over his eyes. He had expected for someone to be there in the moment he woke up. Galrans had a noteworthy talent for dramatics and for keeping every bit of their austere of ‘superbad evil space villains’ up to some standard, probably set by Prince Lotor in some biweekly quota or some shit. But Lance then remembered that the commander that had greeted him in this ship- he wasn’t Galran at all. At least, not the kind he had encountered. His skin was blue and his hair had been black, his face was marred with scars, one stretching across one of his golden eyes, turning it a cloudy grey and yellow color.

 

Whoever this commander was, he apparently didn’t have time to read Lotor's Biweekly Mandates for Dramatic Flair, or his simply didn’t care for Lance, because he left him alone.

 

For a really, really long time.

 

Lance didn’t get up off his side for a long time because the shoulder he was on ignited with pain every time he so much as thought about moving from the position. It was clear he’d been thrown into the cell, and however he had landed had fucked up something in it because if he didn’t lie perfectly still the muscles and ligament in it felt like they were _ablaze._ The pain made him dizzyingly nauseous each time he tried to move, but as time passed and the only person that entered his cell was a guard to drop what must’ve been a tray of food, Lance had realized sooner or later he was going to have to pick himself up.

 

It hurt like a _bitch._

 

The colorful string of swear words that spilled out as he hoisted himself off his injured shoulder were enough to get him a heavy thump and a loud shout of ‘ _Si_ _lence’_ from the door outside his cell.

 

Lance had glared daggers towards the source of the sound, a number of comebacks popping up in his head but none worth the effort to make his mouth move again. His tongue felt heavy and dry against the roof of his mouth and sitting upright was costing him most of his energy. His head spun and spun and he still couldn’t see _anything._

 

Lance brought his tied hands up to his shoulder to feel around the swollen skin. It felt tight and hot and hurt under his touch. It was probably dislocated and he knew that he’d need to reset it but he also didn’t know how. Paladin first aid training somehow didn’t include resetting their shoulder sockets. Still, Lance reasoned that he’d seen it enough times on t.v and in movies, so really, how hard could it be...

 

Lance sucked in a breath and then gave his shoulder a swift hit as hard as he could with both hands still bound, hitting with all the strength he could muster. The angle was wrong or something because he momentarily felt something else give way in a different part of his shoulder and then a blinding pain ripped his way up through his shoulder up into his jaw.

 

Lance couldn’t stop the loud cry of pain that triggered yet another slam from the other side of his cell door.

 

He spent a very long time just gasping for breath in the dark of his cell before the pain subsided in his arm enough for him to attempt to move again.

 

Okay, he could sort the shoulder out later.

 

After fumbling around for a few moments with his hands cuffed in front of him, he found the tray of food in the floor and had taken it and retreated until he felt the wall pressed against his back again. He took a few desperate gulps of the oddly thick liquid that had spilled over onto the rest of whatever goopy material was on the tray, figuring if the Galra wanted him dead they wouldn’t go as far as to handcuff him in a cell just to poison him.

 

The food he couldn’t make himself eat at first. Not for a long while, not until the shakiness in his hand and body became less due to the sitting position he forced himself to maintain or because of the sheer _fuckery_ his sense underwent with the impediment to his eyesight, and more because he was just so fucking _hungry._

 

Lance resisted the eating because eating meant that it was real. He could only imagine how the slimey, now slightly thicker and much colder pile of slime would taste in his mouth and that would just make this whole situation that much more real.

 

But it was real. Lance knew he had to face that eventually. It was real and he wasn’t getting out of it.

 

Being the universe’s defender of the galaxy had instilled a belief in hope in him like he’d never felt for anything in his life.

 

But no one was coming for him. No one was going to find him. He’d either die at the hands of the Galra or die wasting away in this prison cell.

 

He knew which one Keith would chose. Angry, belligerent, can’t see past the tip of his nose and blind rage Keith. Keith would rather die with galra laser to his head and body broken in more ways than one than waste away in a galra cell.

 

Lance held onto that thought, pushing away the twisting feeling he felt in his chest at the thought of Keith, who he was pretty sure would kill him on site after the stunt Lance pulled.

 

Everyone would.

 

That was part of the plan.

 

Lance wished he was strong enough to waste himself away in his cell, he wished he was strong enough yell and scream and shout obscenities and challenges in true Kieth fashion until the guards came bursting through the door and finally took him out.

 

But his mouth wouldn’t work and his heart beat too quick in his chest and he just. _Couldn’t._

 

So he ate.

 

And he stayed there.

 

By day seven, Lance had grown used to blindness. Not after having several panic attacks that left him gasping back into consciousness against the floor of the cell after he inevitably passed out. But eventually, even his nerves grew tired.

 

He could count the time by the guard cycle. On what he thought was the third day, one guard had made a joke that Lance had guessed to be the earth comparison to the old “another day, another dollar” saying.

 

Or maybe it wasn’t, and Lance was just imagining it.

 

Either way, Lance had convinced himself the guard cycles changed twice daily and if that was truly the case then he was on his seventh day here. Seven days and no one, good or bad, had come.

 

Lance couldn’t help but wonder why he was still alive. Had the Galra kept him just to watch his slow descent into insanity because if so they were on the fast track to a good show.

 

Already Lance had woken up several times with a hoarse shout building in his throat at the fading image of Shiro slicing at him with a glowing purple hang or Keith’s blade piercing through his abdomen. The skin of his hands was now raw and sore because he spent his days just wringing them, invisible itches creeping up their backs with full vengeance the second he tried to stop.

 

The days went by slow, excruciatingly so. They seemed to drag on forever. Lance rarely left his spot against the wall except to stand and stretch out his legs once a day and try to carefully work the crick out of his back without aggravating his shoulder. The joint had grown stiff and swollen but the pain remained at a constant dull throb unless Lance attempted to move it. He’d gotten used to not.  

 

Every time he ate it was still an internal battle that ended in shame and guilt as he swallows whatever thick substance the Galra were feeding him. it was a different consistency that when they’d been eating on the castle, this once tasted meatier, somehow. Every time he felt hunger clawing out from his stomach and throughout his entire body, he met it, and fought it, but every time it eventually won. He had to eat, he could take not eating. The pain of hunger was hard, but the effects of not eating made existing day to day so much worse. The exhaustion that came made it hard to not fall asleep and even harder to reawaken from the terrible nightmares that came when he did. He’d passed out once from hunger only to wake up with a jolt and broken swear of agony as he landed on his injured shoulder. The dizziness of hunger combined with a lack of sleep was enough to throw off his leg stretching routine, and even more terrifying, almost made him miss the tell tale sounds of the guards changing.

 

Days strung together with only the soft voice of the guards being anything new. He felt his world existed only down to his body, the cuffs, and the new trays of the same food that came every day into his cell. He felt like a barrier existed around, hovering just outside his skin, only the touch of his hands against each other could break through the haziness.

 

Eventually, one realization was enough to break Lance’s routine and his constant mental drifting miles away to his former teammates, to his friends…

 

It came from his guards, as they approached for a change that seemed to be off schedule from what Lance could remember.

 

“...rebel attack we’re moving to changing once everyday instead every other day.”

 

Every other day…

 

Lance had scratched onto the floor by his feet a single tick for every day he had remembered to count. He desperately ran his fingers over the marks to count as a panic he had not felt since he  first got here began to swell up in his chest.

 

Fourteen days. He’d counted fourteen days which meant.

 

He’d been here for almost a month.

 

The month destroyed everything he’d been trying so hard to keep together because the smallest part of him had at least been hoping that Voltron was still out there, maybe not even trying to find him, maybe they would just come and blast a hole in the side of the ship and he’d be done with it. Maybe they would come for him and Shiro would look at him with all the hate and disgust Lance could imagine before he brought his glowing hand down.

 

The smallest hope had existed but... a month. Lance brought his head forward, curling in on himself, resting his still cuffed wrists against his knees and his head against them as his breathing quickened and his head swam and all he could think to do was scream and shout and just _fucking_ -

 

So he did.

 

Lance screamed until the thumps on his door morphed into loud banging and then swung open. The blow to the back of his head was the first contact he had with another being since before he’d first gotten here.


	2. And Walls Came Tumbling Down...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long update, but I hope you enjoy. Thanks!

 

“I can’t track it” Allura sighed letting her hands fall from the panels of the castle as they sank down into the floor before her. Her posture was tight as she looked back up at the faces watching her through several of the castle’s display screens, frustrated both at herself and this situation.

 

Losing Lance- No, being _betrayed_ by Lance had done a number on their team, Shiro was hardly able to choke out the words after Coran had pulled them all into the castle, before they had all got into the healing pods.

 

Every member had in someway blamed themselves. If only they’d payed more attention, if only they had learned from the beginning, if only they’d listened when Lance said he was homesick, and maybe had recognized that some things were just not able to be pushed aside.

 

Allura had felt anger, hatred at first at Lance. Lance had sent out a short video from Red to the castle before he’d been captured, talking quickly about how he wanted to go home, and how this had been the only way for him to get home. Allura hated him for being so selfish that he’d given up part of the universe’s last hope just to go home, when her home had been literally _destroyed_. Once she was out of the pods, she’d focused almost all their additional resources into tracking down Lance, she’d sworn herself she would find him herself and demand answers for how weak he’d made Voltron and it’s paladins.

 

That’s what this current conference was about, the Blades and several other strong members of the Voltron coalition were on the screens, waiting as Allura finished trying to track the Red Lion’s signal, her fourth attempt since she’d woken up out of the healing pods two weeks ago.

 

Hunk and Pidge were both sitting at their own individual consoles nearby. They both seemed to deflate at her words. Both of them had been ghosts of their former selves, living life day to day in a droll castle ship, painfully aware of what was missing that made life so droll.

 

Allura knew in secret they were working on trying to track down Lance. The mice had told her one night, a couple days after everyone had finished healing. She’d had a short conversation with Shiro about it. They’d ultimately decided to let them work on it in peace. The team would  have to have a discussion about it if the two managed to discover anything significant, but as it stood now, Allura wasn’t ready to further divide her team over it, so she let Hunk and Pidge continue to work unaware.

 

Finding the Red Lion, in anyway they could, had to be their highest priority right now.  

 

Standing in front of Hunk and Pidge, right underneath the large communication screens,  was Shiro. He just looked tired. He’d looked simply exhausted ever since he told them all about Lance, and even the healing pods hadn’t fixed that. He tried so hard to stay in the role of the leader, paying close attention to Hunk and Pidge during the few training sessions they’d performed, but outside of Voltron, he hardly said much anymore. It was no secret that Shiro blamed himself more than the others for Lance’s action, it was obvious he thought he’d failed the team as their leader, and as a friend.

 

Shiro only barely turned to face her as Allura delivered the news and re-joined him at the helm of the deck. She watched his expression become briefly clouded with frustration before he turned away, schooling his features.

 

“How is this different than how you able to track them before we got here?” Pidge asked spectatively from behind them. Her mind was just as sharp as before but her eagerness for these kinds of puzzles and logic just didn’t seem the same.

 

On the large screen in front of them, Kolivan frowned , making a noise of agreement. “I had wondered the same. Has the situation changed how the lions allow themselves to be tracked?”

 

Allura clenched her teeth. _The situation_. The Blades were always blunt with team Voltron, they preferred straight forward answers and never danced around a topic.  But it seemed now they were being conscious of the blow Lance’s actions had dealt. Maybe it was because Keith was also there with him, but it frustrated Allura even more to know that if Kolivan was choosing to be vague at a time like this, it was because he was painfully aware of how badly the paladins were at a disadvantage because of  this. They didn’t need to be babied right now, they needed to find the Red Lion before it was lost forever.

 

Anger and anxiety bubbled in Allura’s chest at the thought of losing the Red Lion. If they accepted this as defeat, then that meant they’d won. Haggar, Zarkon...and maybe even Lance. They’d all beaten Voltron and that- That just wasn’t going to happen.

 

Shiro cleared his throat, snapping Allura out of her thoughts and bringing her downcast glare back up to the screen. He and took a fraction of a step toward her, an eyebrow raised in concern before Allura swallowed and shook her head, turning back to Kolivan to speak.

 

“The lions, when the paladins first arrived, weren’t able to be tracked by a single device. What called out to me was their own signals as they each called out to their own individual paladins.” Allura frowned again. “This time, it seems the Red Lions’ own signal has either been damaged or is being blocked by something.” She took a hesitant breath before she continued,  “If Lance allowed them to explore the paladin bond, then it may be possible they have found a way to manipulate it. It is possible that they may have found a way to turn shut it down forever…” She trailed off. If the Galra had somehow found a way to manipulate the Red Lion, found a way to control it, they may have lost it and voltron forever.

 

Shiro’s hand clasped down on her shoulder, bringing her out of her spiraling thoughts again. His face looked comforting, but Allura could still detect the tightness in his expression as he said firmly and loudly enough for everyone on their conference to hear, “We’re not going to let that happen.”

 

Shiro turned back to Kolivan then, “I’m sorry but it seems we cannot confirm the intel you have provided for us. We haven’t encountered that specific battle cruiser in any of our battles since we lost the Red Lion.” The Blade’s  small bit of possibly stronger than a rumor information they’d dug up was the reason they’d called this meeting, but at least in Shiro’s opinion, the one piece of information targeting one of the many Galran destroyers wasn’t enough to act yet. Shiro went on to add, “But at the same time we also have not yet encountered the Red Lion in any battle we’ve had so far.” He glanced over to Allura again for a brief second before continuing “It is likely better for us to wait this out until we have a higher confidence than to sacrifice the only lead we’ve had in days…”

 

Keith's voice came from over he comms then, sharp and dangerous, like Shiro had been expecting. “This intel is the most promising thing we’ve been able to find in weeks!” He said hotly, “If we don’t take this chance and we miss it, the Galra could have Red for who knows how long until we somehow manage to find something else again!”

 

Shiro only sighed in the face of Keith’s anger, “Keith it’s not enough to act on...” he said, expression both placating and a bit worried, hoping Keith would see through his anger enough to see his point.

 

“Shiro I know it’s there,” Keith said slowly, voice pitching lower, “ I don’t know how, maybe it’s the leftover bond with the Red Lion but I just know it.” His voice was hard and even lined with an edge of hysteria, as if his entire world depended on Shiro just _believing_ him in that moment. And maybe it did, at this point. Everyone had half expected Keith to come back once they’d broken the news of Lance to the Blades. No one had been particularly surprised, however, when he had instead just thrown himself full force into the search for the Red lion. Keith had grown withdrawn and distant and he now looked like he hadn’t slept in the weeks since they’d lost the Red Lion. He stubbornly refused to help out with any Blades tasks, he’d only been set on finding a way to track down his former lion.

 

Shiro had to admit he understood, or at least he thought he did. He couldn’t imagine losing Black the way Keith had lost Red. Maybe it was because Red had been Lance’s at the time and that had made it so much worse. Keith was struggling to find some way to deal with all the pain of losing one close friend and being betrayed by another, and this search for Red had been his only outlet.

 

Keith’s gaze slackened into something Shiro was sure Keith didn’t allow just anyone to see. It showed the weeks worth of anxiety and hurt built up inside of him with no outlet other than this. It was enough to make Shiro’s heart hurt for Keith, who was so many miles away from the only family he had, without any idea of what to do with so much pain. Which was why Shiro found himself saying, “Go, Keith” before he even really thought it over in his head. Keith needed to do this. Shiro ignored the hard stare Allura snapped over to him. Instead, he added,  “Go, Keith, but come back, please.” They couldn’t afford to lose someone else. “We need you. As a paladin and as a friend- We need you on this team.”

 

Keith’s paused only for a moment, expression shocked like he’d been prepared to fight much more for this. His expression turned grateful but only for a moment before it was replaced by something hard set and determined.

 

“I’m going to find her, Shiro” He said, voice dripping with danerous promise and hard set determination,  “I’m going to find Red and bring her back. Those asshole aren’t winning this.”

 

* * *

 

Elsewhere in the Castle, later in the day, Pidge found Hunk in the lab. He was tinkering away on a device in his hands while a program ran across the screen on one of the monitors in front of him. He was so absorbed in fiddling with the device, eyes flicking occasionally to the screen, that he didn’t notice Pidge come in until she was standing right next to him.  

 

“What are you working on?” Pidge asked as she pulled up a stool to sit next to him and examining the lines as they flickered across the screen. “You’re searching for coded messages?”

 

The yellow paladin had stiffered when she first sat down, but now relaxed. Hunk sighed and set the two metal pieces he’d been fiddling with down on the table. “Yeah, I’m just looking through all the frequencies the castle has received ever since….”

 

“You…” Pidge began, biting her lip, “You really think he sent something like that?” She wasn’t judging trying to sound judgemental.

 

Hunk sighed again, running his palms along his face. “I don’t know Pidge, I just know that everyone’s so ready to assume the worst in Lance but I _know_ Lance. He’s loyal to a fault, he wouldn’t…” Hunk trailed off momentarily, his eyebrows knitting together in an angry sort of frustration,” He wouldn’t just leave us like that. You know that” He said, looking back up to Pidge. “There’s something we’re missing. He had to have had a plan or _something_.”

 

Pide held up her hands placatingly, “I know, I know” she said quickly, sensing Hunk’s defensiveness. “I haven’t known Lance as long as you have but I know enough to know that something's off here too. That’s why I’m helping you too.” Pidge pointed out. “If Lance’s comms turn on at any point we’ll be able to find it” Pidge pointed to the lifeless montor next to the one Hunk was running that had her program on it, just waiting to receive the one signal she’d programmed it to receive.

 

It didn’t seem like a lot, but with no other leads on where Lance was or how he got there, it was the best Pidge could think to do without outright acting behind Allura’s back. It wasn’t as thought she strictly forbade them to find Lance, but she could tell that Hunk and her were searching for Lance with very different intents.

 

Hunk nodded at her and seemed to deflate, looking back forlornly as the computer screen beeped and turned up nothing in the search results.

 

“Allura and Shiro suspect something, I think they’re going to wait until we find him to confront us about it” Pidge said quietly after a moment, to break the silence that clouded the air between them. When Hunk only shifted, not saying anything else, she added; “If it came down to it, would you come between Allura and Lance?” Because she felt like she needed to know how far this was all willing to go

 

Hunk pressed his lips together and ran a hand into his hair, shaking his head at how fucked up of a situation this all really was. A sentiment Pidge could agree with. Then he leveled Pidge a hard look, determination glinting in his eye with a ferocity that caught Pidge off guard but didn’t really surprise her.

 

“Lance is going to get a chance to explain himself,” He said, “I’ll make sure of that. He deserves as much after everything he’s done for this team.”

 

Pidge nodded too, slowly in agreement.

 

Hunk’s program beeped back at them as it began the scan again. Pidge watched the signals scroll past the page, and I popping up the back of her mind.

 

“How far back are you scanning?” She asked to change from the heavy weight of the conversation they’d just had.

 

“Back to a couple hours after the battle, I figured Lance would need time to set up any sort of signal before he sent it out” Pidge nodded slowly in agreement, thinking for a second, then paused.

 

“Hunk, this brings up signals logs of everything within the castles range during a set time frame, yes?” She asked, leaning forward towards the monitor.

 

“Yeah, it identifies logs all of the ships and stuff that castle has been near and any transmissions we received, directly or indirectly,” Hunk answered slowly, moving to peer over Pidge’s shoulder as she began typing. “I figured Lance wouldn’t send another direct message to the castle, maybe the Galra were monitoring him, but maybe he sent something else-”

 

“No, no that’s not what I’m looking for.” Pidge said as she began typing faster, the way she did when she had an idea forming in her head. “You said it yourself there’s part of this we’re missing”

 

Hunk watched as Pidge set the date slider back to the beginning of the battle they’d lost Lance in.

 

“What are you thinking Pidge?”

 

“I think that you’re right.” Pidge replied after a moment. She scrolled through the data logs and then highlighted one segment that had shown up during the battle.

“Because that ship right there never once registered on the Green Lion’s scanners.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

Lance woke up with a pounding in his head and a blue face, inches away from his own, staring back at him.

 

Lance’s breath caught, but he couldn’t do more than blank back at the Galra commander across from his, his mind still slow and sluggish as it caught back up to him.  The cuffs from around his wrists abruptly dropped off, the weight of them disappearing was was what abruptly brought him fully back to himself. Lance blinked down to stare at his hands for a few seconds, confused as to why his vision seems so bad when he abruptly realized- _he could see._

 

The events leading up to this came flooding back to him. He remembered screaming so hard that his cell door opened, and he remembered screaming still as his voice grated and broke and his head felt so light that he was sure he was going to pass out. Then the blows started and he eventually did pass out but he still remembered wanting to stop, hearing the sounds of himself and how no matter how hard he tried, not being able to just _stop_.

 

But -Oh, they had stopped him now.

 

Lance realized the tightness around his jaw slowly wasn’t solely from the stiffness of a swelling bruise across his cheek. A piece of hard galra metal was been strapped to his chin. It’s was a mask, a muzzle, that Lance could feel wrapped around the lower half of his face. Lance felt himself go almost cross eyed as he tried to look at it, fear and indignation rising both equally as fast within him.

 

The galra commander watched Lance, unaffected. Lance’s eyes snapped back to him, terrified and honestly affronted. He was met with and impassive, almost bored expression as the Commander’s gaze traced the the line of his mask over his face, turning Lance’s head to both sides so examine the mask, and letting out a seemingly satisfied noise before releasing him to abruptly stand. Lance couldn’t stop the flinch back he made at the sudden action.

 

“The mask will open once a day for a period of time to allow you to eat,” the commander said, taking a couple of steps away from Lance, leaving him hunched over,  kneeling on the tiles of what appeared to be one of the central command rooms. The commander paused and looked back over his shoulder at Lance, a more lethal look coming his face, “And you will eat, Paladin” he stated slowly, “Your attempt at self-sabotage are transparent at best. Your purpose here in mine alone to decide.” The commander turned to face him fully, “You will eat or we will find another way of making you do so”

 

Lance flinched at the threat, a million different scenarios flickering through his head, none of them pleasant. Images of the galra shoving rough handfuls of food goo down his throat before clamping over his lips, refusing to budge until he swallowed clouded his mind and made him nearly sick to his stomach.  

 

Lance shook his head, hard, trying to refocus him mind somewhere else. His blurry vision fell back down to the cuffs. Why had they left him uncuffed? Lance couldn’t figure that out. Lance also noticed for the first time that his hands we rubbed raw is some places, and scabbed in others from his constant wringing and constant itching.  

 

The galra general cleared his throat and turned back away, drawing Lance’s attention as he faced away.

 

“You do not get to die just yet Paladin.” he to the space at large outside of the Helm’s viewshield. His voice held such monotone conviction that Lance just knew this wasn’t just another Galra general.

 

This one was important, somehow.

 

“it seems you’ve taking quicker to the madness than I had originally thought. We may yet still need you partially sane yet.” The Galra finished, then he turned again, facing a point to Lance’s left, and said, “Maldrevious”

 

Lance felt the room go cold as one of the doors off to the side slid open. He barely had time to register the sound of rustling robes before a hand buried itself into his hair, hoisting him up to his feet.

 

“Paladin…” A shrill voice said in his ear just as something clasped around his wrist where the cuffs had formerly been. “How nice of you to offer us your services.”

 

The druid dropped Lance back to the floor, unaffected as the paladin crumpled into a heap there, barely managing to avoid landing on his injured shoulder. Something was wrong, Lance thought to himself. The feeling only intensified as the band on his wrist seemed to hum against the skin. He laid there for a few seconds and the feeling of wrongness seemed to envelop him. It felt like he was drowning in something. The feeling prodded at him, in different parts of his mind he could feel it seeking, searching for something, an item, maybe, or a feeling- a _bond._ Lance suddenly knew what it was after and without any hesitation made sure anything that was left of Red’s bond with him was instantly severed. He could feel the last glimpse of her morose plea for him to not do so as he shut her out. He couldn’t have the Galra tracking her through him, which is obviously what they planned to do.

 

Lance laid there on the ground, twitching against the uncomfortable feeling of the druid’s magic searching through his mind while the band around his wrist hummed along with it.

 

After a moment, the druid above him gave a short snort of  frustrated derision. “The information is buried but it is not accessible. It will take time but eventually we will find it” He said, talking over Lance to the Galra commander.

 

The commander nodded, fixing his gaze on Lance as Lance turned his head against the cool metal of the floor, looking up at him. “Time is something we have plenty of. We will not deliver to Zarkon unless we have the Red paladin and the lion ready to-”    

 

Lance jerked in surprise as a wailing alarm suddenly rang throughout the entire control room. The druid next to him apparated away in an instant. The not-galran general swore storming towards the doorway, blithely passing Lance without sparing him another Glance.

 

“They will not come for the paladin unless they intend to kill him.” He said to the two Galra guards the came into room, right before he left.

 

Lance sat in his cell a while later, as the alarms rang out above him, knowing full well that at any moment someone could break in and kill him. He’s spent a month listening to the guards outside complain about their work, he didn’t have the highest hopes they would protect him if push came to shove.

 

Lance found himself hanging off the end of every PA brief that came over the comms, knowing that either one of them spelled something bad for him in possibly every outcome of the situation.

 

Eventually, the sirens cut off and the color of his cell turns from a flashing red back to dark grey bathed in the normal maroon light of the galra ship. Lance could still feel his heart thumping in his chest. Maybe they’d lost, maybe they’d won. Lance didn’t know which side was ‘they’ yet. He didn’t want to think about it.

 

A couple of quintets go by before there came a commotion outside his door in the hallway.

 

Here they came. He was going to die. He wonders if the others had written home to his family yet, he wonders if they’d even bother to. Hunk, maybe, would have the thought. Would Shiro stop him?

 

The door slid open and Lance flinched, ready for the bright blitz of a blaster or a flash of purple but it never comes.

 

Lance cracked an eye open and watched as two galran guards toss a struggling form clad in a gut twisting my familiar Blade of Marmora suit into the prison cell with him.

 

Lance’s mind flew through various emotions all at once, one even landing on hysterics for a second because was this not just _fucking_ hilarious. Because as Lance’s terrible horrible no good very bad luck- Lance’s shitty cursed, probably a mass murderer in another life, kind of luck would have it-

 

Keith fucking Kogane was there with a blindfold over his eyes and blood dripping from his hairline, a vicious snarl set on his face and both hands bound behind his back.

 

Lance couldn’t believe his fucking luck.

 

Keith was a _fucking_ idiot. Let that be known that Keith Kogane, one of the most badass and brilliant fighters Lance had ever seen  had the fucking survival skills of a blind lemming. The absolute dumbass didn’t know when to sit down and shut up and maybe for a second even think about his actions and it was probably going to get him killed before Lance could even begin to think of a plan to get him out of there. Keith was the last fucking red paladin and he was provoking guards like he’d rather be beat to death than hold out for the number of people including Voltron and their allies and the Blades that were out there looking for him.

 

But Lance- Good old coward Lance- was too frozen with fear of Keith discovering to do anything to stop him while the former red paladin banged on the door, shouting and yelling and creating such a ruckus that eventually the guards did open the door.

 

Keith’s plan of attacking them as soon as they entered was painfully obvious and he painfully lost before Lance could even convince himself to get up and help. One of the guards backhanded him so hard blood splattered across the floor near Lance’s feet. The other guard kicked him hard enough that not even the chain binding hKeith’s wrists that he brough up to block him could stop the force of it. The chains tichtened and then snapped and the guard stumbled forward while as his foot caught Keith in the face. The guard regained himself quickly enough to  deliver a few short kicks to Keith’s crumpled form that sent him sprawling. The two left once they were satisfied Keith wasn’t going to be moving anytime soon.

 

Some part of Lance was overridden with the impulse to help Keith when the red paladin didn’t move for several long moments. His former fears were forgotten as he waited anxiously for any sign of movement in Keith prone form. Keith would probably kill him, but Lance knew how important it was that Keith survive.

 

Keith was on his side and thankfully, at least partially unconscious. Lance gingerly rolled him over onto his back using his one arm that wasn’t useless to do so.

 

The blood from earlier came from a gash on Keith’s face. It wasn’t too deep but it had dirt and grime near and it needed to be cleaned.

 

Lance started with that. There was water and food on a tray still from a couple days ago that Lance was currently struggling over. He scooted over and grabbed the water glass before returning to Keith’s side.

 

The water slid over Keith’s pale skin down into the cut, welling there. Lance used the hood of Keith’s Mamora suit to wipe it away, knowing that nothing on his own body would be clean enough to use.

 

Now that the easiest part was over...

 

Lance checked Keith’s ribs next, pressing his fingers gently against the skin there. trying to feel for any breaks while also trying to ignore his mounting anxiety because this was so close, he was so close and Keith was going to discover him.

 

Still Lance forced himself to do it, feeling like he was prodding a sleeping alligator or a lion as he pressed his palm against Keith’s ribs checking for breaks.

 

Something moved beneath his hand and Lance swore to himself because how were they going to fix _that_.

 

An arm suddenly collided with Lance’s face, jerking his head to the side enough to send his vision spiraling and sending him sprawling backward.

 

His shoulder lit up in a blaze of fiery pain so bad Lance that was grateful for the mask attached to his face or else Keith would have definitely recognized his hoarse scream of pain.

 

Keith, despite having _clearly_ broken ribs and being fucking blindfold, was still on him in a second.

 

Lance’s head smacked against the concrete of the cell floor as Keith’s hand slammed into his throat. He barely had time to recover from the pain when the hand around his throat pressed down and _squeezed._

 

“Who the _fuck_ are you” Keith spat from above him. There was a viciousness to his voice that Lance had only seen a few times before in the heat of battle and had never, ever wanted to be on the other end of.

 

Lance couldn’t answer, even if he could _breathe_ right now, he still had a mask strapped over his face.

 

If he didn’t answer, Keith was going to kill him.

 

Maybe it was just delaying the inevitable, honestly, because Keith was bound to find out eventually.

 

Lance wondered if it was better to die a stranger to Keith than to be intentionally killed by him.

 

“Answer me!” Keith demanded after a second, jerking his hand against Lance’s throat and knocking Lance head against the floor again as he did. In the back of his mind, Lance recognized that Keith was probably terrified. He could make out Keith’s twisted and panicked expression from underneath the blindfold strapped across his face. Lance knew first hand just how disorienting losing his sight had been, and for someone that operates almost entirely off of instinct like Keith, it was probably making him so much more hostile and irrational than he usually would be right now.

 

This would probably be better for Keith in the long run at least.

 

Just as his vision was growing spotty and the metal of his mask had grown damp against his wheezing breathes and spitting as he struggled against the pressure on his windpipe, Lance moved his head and the back of his mask scraped across the back of Keith’s hand.

 

Keith froze.

 

Lance waited as there was a tense second of silence before Keith’s grip loosed from Lance’s throat and he moved his hand. Fingertips brushed along the line of metal of where the mask touched his cheek. Lance flinched back away from the touch, breath still heaving, afraid his skin might feel too human for Keith to not find him out. Keith jolted still when he realized what it was beneath his hand.

 

“Oh god-“ Keith choked out. He flung himself off of Lance in an instant, scrambling backwards as Lance wheezed and rolled onto his side . “God- I’m so- I’m so sorry”

 

Even though his head was still swimming and he struggled to regain his breathing through the burning in his throat, Lance could recognize how uncharacteristically small Keith voice sounded. Everything seemed like it was alight in pain but Lance still made himself focus on the other paladin.

 

Keith was sitting a few feet away from him, hunched over against the wall with his face pressed into his knees, scrunched up in overwhelmed frustration and guilt.

 

“I’m so sorry…” Keith choked out again, not moving his face so that it came out muffled against his knees.  


Lance gave himself a few more seconds to pull in a few more deep breaths before he made himself move. A low whine of pain built up in his throat as he pressed his palm to the floor and used it to leverage himself up, no sound escaped through the material of the gag. Lance slowly maneuvered his legs up underneath him so that he was finally kneeling on the floor across from Keith, not taking his eyes off the Red paladin. Keith was clearly on the verge of a panic attack. Lance had helped him through them before, back on the castle ship. The circumstances were different now, obviously, because Lance couldn’t speak and Keith couldn’t see, but Lance knew he had to do this. He knew how to do this.

 

At Lance’s shuffling, Keith head had snapped up, his expression underneath his blindfold was panicked and pleading as he realized probably for the first time that he hadn’t actually killed his cellmate .

 

“I’m so sorry- I- I can’t see and I panicked and you can’t fucking _talk_ and I-“ His voice broke off a shuddering breath and his whole frame vibrated as he shrunk in on himself.

 

Lance scanned their cell quickly, his own anxiety rising. He couldn’t touch Keith, he couldn’t because his hands were too human and Keith would instantly _know_ , but he needed to calm him down.

 

Lance spotted the half empty water can he’d used earlier to clean Keith’s cut. Miraculously, it hadn’t been toppled over. Lance quickly grabbed it and set it on the floor between him and Keith before he gently pushed it forward, letting it scrape against the hard floor as he did so.

 

The Red paladin froze.

 

Lance nudged the can again and Keith’s head dipped down towards the source of the sound, his eyebrows scrunched under his blindfold as Lance nudged the can again before he hesitantly reached out a hand to touch it.

 

Lance watched Keith slowly touched his fingertips against the side of the can, before moving up to the rim, dipping in. He paused when he realized what it was, a softer expression of came across his face. Keith lifted the cup to his lips and took a small sip, trembling hands struggling to hold the glass steady but still it was enough to make Lance exhale in relief.

 

Maybe they could make this work after all.

 

Lance waited as Keith drank, the sound of his small sips being the only thing in the cell. Lance could feel his throat growing hot as the bruises from Keith’s hand formed, and the pain that still tinged with every breath he took, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel anything but gratitude at the fact that he’d somehow managed to break through to Keith.

 

After a second, Keith said “...Thanks” in a low but solid voice, looking slightly embarrassed.

 

Lance moved his legs out from under him to sit cross legged on the floor, facing the Red Paladin He was still a good distance away from Keith but Lance could see then tension his shoulders had eased a bit and his breathing was returning to normal. But he was still tightly curled in on himself, pressed against the wall thought and it had to be hurting his ribs.

 

Before Lance could think of something to do about it, Keith spoke again. His voice sounded stronger and clearer but still hesitant. “Are you ah- with the galra?”

 

Lance didn’t know how to answer that.

 

Luckily, Keith remembered his predicament after a second, and frowned, embarrassed. “Ah, shit, sorry, _fuck_ I’m not good at this. I just-”

 

Lance didn’t know how to reach out to him without _reaching_ out to him. Instead, he reached out a hand and knocked hesitantly against the floor, trying to distract Keith from his current train of thought.

 

Keith’s head snapped up at the noise. “Yeah, okay that works. Can you do two taps for yes, one tap for no?”

 

Lance hesitated, and then, slowly tapped twice.

 

Keith nodded to himself and relaxed a bit, one of his legs relaxed to the side a bit before he stretched it out in front of him. Lance could see the wince of pain he gave at the movement as it pulled against his ribs, but Keith made no motion to it. They’d have to think of something to fix those soon, but for now, Keith continued.

 

“So, uh, like I said before, are you galra?”

 

One tap for no. Lance couldn’t help the small smile beneath his mask at the need to point out to Keith that _he_ was the one who was Galra.

 

“Okay, okay, are you working for the Galra?”

 

Lance tapped no again, then paused for a second, a sinking feeling stomach. Was he working for the Galra? No, obviously not, but would Keith be even more mad at him when he finally did discover him if he thought he was lying this entire time?

 

Lance wanted to laugh at the thought that there was any room for Keith to be even more ready to kill him than he probably already was. It was easy to forget all that anticipated anger when Keith just looked so small and tired at the moment as he mulled over Lance’s responses in his head.

 

“You’re a rebel then?”

 

One tap no. Lance couldn’t bring himself to claim the same work that Matt Holt and the rest of them were doing. It wouldn’t be fair.

 

Keith’s brow furrowed again at the answer. “So you’re just against the Galra? Are you part of the coalition?”

 

Lance figured that was probably his most believable answer he could give Keith right now. He tapped twice. Keith relaxed.

 

“So you know about Voltron?” He asked with an edge of excitement to his voice.

 

Lance tapped yes.

 

A small smile came across Keith’s face at that, something quiet and proud. He looked like he was about to say more but then he stopped himself, expression fading away to something more reserved. Lance didn’t want to think too much about it.

 

“I’m sorry that they did that to you,” Keith said instead, after a moment. It surprised Lance, how much Keith was talking to him. He wondered if he was coping some how, or if this was Keith just trying to become comfortable sharing a cell with someone he couldn’t see. “I hope you got to give them some hell before they did.”

 

Lance thought back to the circumstances that had let to the mask and abruptly couldn’t keep looking at Keith.

 

“I had a friend…he didn’t really know when to shut up either.” Lance froze, pressing his lips together behind his mask and didn’t dare look up from the floor.  “Got us into a fuckton of trouble when we were in the Cerneas system…” Keith trailed off, something lilting in his voice. He stayed quiet for a long second, like he was about to say something else, then he switched tracks. “I’m...sorry, I shouldn’t be telling you all this, it’s just… I miss him a lot. He was a fucking idiot… But he...”

 

Lance heart hit his throat like a punch. His throat tightened and the pain that flared up against aggravated the bruises forming around it made him wheeze behind the mask.

 

Lance had a moment, a crazy stupid moment where he wondered if maybe Keith didn’t hate him. If maybe he could...Maybe Lance didn’t have to hide. Maybe Keith would understand. Maybe they could get through this together, help each other. Maybe Keith could set help him set his fucking _shoulder._

 

 _Fucking idiot,_ Lance mentally hissed at himself, immediately shutting down that thought. Keith was Keith and he was as much soft heart as he was fire but Lance knew that no one on their team would forgive him for betraying them. His one job now was getting Keith out of there, and he couldn’t do that if Keith killed him first.

 

Lance brought himself to his feet and walked back to the opposite side of the room, ignoring the look of confusion across Keith’s face under the blindfold. Lance hunched in on himself and slid down the opposite wall. He didn’t want to talk to Keith any more. He needed to focus on his mission. The more he spoke to Keith the more he would convince himself to almost do something so stupid like that again.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to follow me on Tumblr @anaclastic-azurite


	3. Mountains That are Stacked With Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance is in pain. Keith is in pain. Lance gets sad he is in pain. Lance is in love? Keith gets pretty mad. Aaaand Lance is in pain again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I have no excuse so lets get that out of the way right off the bat. I'm sorry this took me so long guys :< If this chapter seems like its two different chunks of words in completely different writing styles stitched together after being written almost one year apart...Well, that’s more likely than you might think. There are plenty of text and grammar issues in here, so just...be warned. If I keep fighting with it, it’s never going to see the light of day. So anyway, here’s 7K words of angst.

Lance was asleep when the pain began again. He had his back against the wall and his head lolling to the side on his uninjured shoulder when tiny pinpricks began to creep there way up his arm. It built small waves, so small at first, that he barely noticed them, frowning and shuffling in his half asleep state. But the sensation continued to build, getting worse and worse with each passing second until it was finally enough to pierce through his unconsciousness.

 

At first he couldn’t figure out why he had woken up. His shoulder hurt, but his shoulder always hurt, and outside of his other usual bruises, cuts and scrapes, there wasn’t anything else wrong with him physically.

 

The cell around him was dark, still and quiet and there wasn’t any noise coming from outside it either. It was still probably late in the night. Across the room, Lance could see Keith’s sitting form against the opposite wall. He sat with his legs stretched out in front of him and his arms crossed over his chest. Lance couldn’t figure out if he was awake or not before the pain suddenly returned. It racketed up through his arm, making Lance jolt and let a short yelp that was muffled by his mask.  

 

The sensation again faded after a second and Lance sat there breathing hard with his breath stuttering behind his mask. He raised his arm out in front of him and his eyes landed on the cuffs the druid had strapped to his wrist earlier. The maroon lights around the cuff faded out as the pain slowly dissipated.

 

_Fucking druid magic._

 

A couple seconds passed and the pain started up again. The lights around his wrist flared to life, illuminating the darkness of their cell. It built in intensity again, only this time it peaked higher, pulsing up through his body. Lance dropped his arm between his knees and let his head thump back against the wall, screwing his eyes shut as the sensation crested and then eventually receded.

 

He sat against the wall, wheezing in the confines of his mask.

 

More seconds passed in tense waiting and then again, like clockwork, the pain came back.

 

Lance couldn’t help the full body flinch he gave as the sensation flooded him. A different pain, duller and more subdued blossomed out from his injured shoulder at the movement.

 

The sound of his jerky movements must’ve drawn Keith’s attention from across the room. The other paladins head snapped up and  he turned to face Lance’s general direction, eyebrows drawn together, concerned.

 

Lance threw his head back against the wall. The druid magic prodded at something distinct within him, at something buried both in his mind and buried his chest. It was overwhelming. The feeling made his lungs seize as he physically shied away from the wrongness of it. Nevertheless, the magic persisted, pressing painfully as it was tried to get to through.

 

Eventually, it faded again, leaving Lance panting hard as his vision sawm. He shook his head to clear it. His body was shaking and was covered in a sheen of sweat. The inside of his mask was stifling from him and the heavy moisture of his breath. He tried to force himself to breath evenly, waiting anxiously for the next wave

 

The pain built again. Lance’s slammed his good hand into the wall to brace against at the force of it.

 

Keith, across the room, flinched at the loud sound and looked even more concerned. “Um, are you… okay?” He asked slowly and hesitantly, both concern and confusion coloring his voice.

 

Lance scrunched his hand into a fist as the pain slowly receded. He forced himself to knock against the wall behind him, once.

 

 _Yes_.

 

A few seconds later and the pain mounted again, stronger yet again. There was nothing Lance could do to prepare for it- and dammit! It _hurt_ . Lance’s leg kicked out involuntarily, flinching away from it. The heel of his foot smacked against the floor as he tried to remember how to _breathe_

 

Through his blurred vision, he noticed that Keith had stood with his hand braced against the wall to guide him, looking seconds away from making a few hesitant steps toward Lance.

 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Keith went on, even more concerned. “I...I can help you if you’re in pain? Please.”

 

Lance groaned again behind his mask. He slammed his fist into the wall, hard. The pain that spiked up through his wrist was almost a welcome distraction from the pain radiating throughout his entire body. Lance repeated the movement, he slammed his fist against the wall again and again, harder and harder until Keith finally got the message. He could see the conflict clear on Keith’s face beneath his blindfold, but nevertheless, the other paladin finally retreated and sat back down.

 

The druid magic flared once again and Lance focused hard on breathing and trying to keep his limbs still, not wanting to further Keith’s concern any more.

 

The pain flared again and a violent shiver wracked throughout his entire body.

 

The pain pulsed again. Lance’s teeth cut into the skin of his lip.

 

Again and his vision went blurry. He couldn’t calm the stuttering breaths in his chest anymore in order to get a proper lungful of air.

 

Again and Lance wondered if the druids were going to kill him like this.

 

Again.

 

And again.

 

And again.

 

Lance didn’t know when he hit the ground, tipped sideways onto the side. He had the brief presence of mind to be thankful that he hadn’t fallen on his injured shoulder.

 

The pain pulsed again. He screwed his eyes shut tight.

 

The pain pulsed again and everything felt like it was falling into white.

 

When the feeling ebbed away this time, his consciousness went with it

 

\---------------------------

 

Lance came back to himself abruptly. A violent shudder passed through his body, making his breathing catch. His muscles ached in protest. The movement stirred up the pain in his injured shoulder again, sending white hot streaks from his abused muscles and tendons. Lance groaned as his body sang with residual pain. His stomach rolled with the feeling.

 

His face was pressed against the ground, the cold of the floor sweeped into the skin on his cheek and forehead. It felt like it was burning and it did nothing to stop his shivering. He could still feel the stickiness from his own sweat covering his whole body. His muscles twitched and his head pounded.

 

Lance tried to slowly blink his eyes open, disoriented and pushing past the pain in his head.

 

The cell was silent, almost oppressively so. It made Lance think back to when he first got here, the blindfold that had been tried to his face and then being left alone, unable to see or hear for so, so long.

 

Lance’s breathing caught in his throat and his heart began to race. He forced himself to focus, blinking hard until everything in his vision finally sharpened and he could reassure himself again that he could still, infact, _see._

 

He calmed down after that, taking in the sight of the cell around himself while his heart rate slowly returned from edges of a panic attack. He sat back up against the wall, disgruntled and still in pain, but counting his blessings that the druid magic had finally faded- though, he dreaded when it would suddenly start again. Lance scanned the cell, taking in the shadows and shapes and the maroon and gray light around him as he tried to relax.

 

Wait.

 

Something was missing.  

 

Lance blood ran cold and pulse began racing as he realized- snapping his head around frantically, searching but to no avail-

 

Keith was gone.

 

\-----------------------------

 

There was a drain located at the center of the cell. Occasionally, there came the sound of dripping water from it as the moisture trickled off of the pipes. Lance sat with his good arm crossed over the tops of his knees as he stared at it, counting the drips and feeling hollow inside.

 

See, the thing about rescue missions is that, well, most of the time, you don’t fucking lose the person you’re trying to save. Lance could probably write a book after this;  100+ Ways to Fuck up Being the Shittiest Paladin on Team Voltron.

 

His eyes drifted up to scan the his cell again, like he thought Keith was just going to suddenly pop up out of the shadows, like he didn’t let the one person that could pilot the red lion get snatched right in front of him while he was passed out on the floor.

 

Keith probably hadn’t even known they were coming for him, he’d probably only heard the cell door door open and then felt their hands on him, grabbing him and hauling him out the door. He probably would’ve been terrified.

 

Lance cursed himself again and dropped his head against the ripped fabric covering his knees. How useless could he possibly be? Shiro managed to fight off hundreds of gladiators in the arena, saved Matt’s life and even escaped on his own when he had been captured by the galra. All Lance had done is sit miserably in his cell for god-knows how long. And then also let Keith get taken from right under his nose.  

 

Lance felt sick from it all, his stomach rolled from a mixture of residual pain and self-loathing. He swallowed it back determinedly, not wanting to think about what would happen if he lost the contents of his stomach with the mask still on his face. He hated himself for how utterly useless he was. He hated how much Keith needed a teammate right now and how much Lance _failed_ at being able to be there for him.

 

Two trays of food fell in through the slot in the door and clattered to the floor, starting Lance out of his spiraling thoughts. He stared at the two trays blankly for a moment before a heavy thud came on the door and someone demanded, “Eat”.

 

Lance got to his feet and crossed the room to the two trays, thankful the soreness in his muscles had somewhat dissipated by now. He was reassured  at least a little bit that the cooking staff still appeared to think that Keith would be alive by the end of the day to eat this meal.

 

Lance felt the mask around his face slide open like it did everyday for a few minutes to allow him time to eat. The cool air was refreshingly soothing against the swollen heat from his bitten lip and the sweaty skin around his face. He used to corner of his sleeve to brush wipe off the last bit of dried blood that had been itching his chin. Outside of taking a few deep, unrestricted breaths, Lance ignored his open mask. He wasn’t about to eat half the food when he didn’t know the condition Keith was going to be in when he got back. Keith needed to keep up his strength anyway for the escape out of here.

 

And people that lose their partners don’t deserve half of the food, Lance told himself bitterly as he set about piling the food from his bowl the one on Keith’s tray, careful not to spill a drop despite the fact he was working with only one with his good arm. He also poured Keith his half glass of water. The druid magic from earlier this morning had left his throat dry and tacky, but he told himself firmly that he was only going to get something to drink when he figured out how to do something right.

 

Besides, if Keith came back, he might need the extra water to clean his injuries up anyway. Lance hadn’t  done anything all day other than sleep.

 

Lance against the the wall Keith had been sitting against earlier, being careful to set out of the way enough he wouldn’t accidentally knock it over. He then returned back to his position against the other wall and curled back in on himself, tucking his head against his knees. He waited, drawing in what precious breaths of fresh air he could until the mask finally slid shut again. He let his thoughts drift, thinking about things, and then avoiding thinking about others. He needed to come up with a plan to get Keith out of heat, but he brain was too scattered to focus.

 

 _Useless,_ he scoffed to himself. His thoughts wandered and drifted but he refused to let himself sleep, pinching his arm hard everytime he felt himself start to lull off. No, he’d done enough sleeping for today and look where that had gotten him. Lance promised himself wouldn’t sleep until Keith got back and he could make sure that he was okay.

 

There was no concept of time except between the two guard changes, and even then Lance had no idea if he’d slept through the one or more of them. Time passed weirdly, so Lance didn’t know if it had been hours or only minutes before the door to his cell was finally was finally thrown open and Keith was shoved through.

 

The other paladin stumbled briefly into the cell, foot catching on the ground but he managed to keep his balance. Lance felt his whole body relax at the sight. Keith didn’t look too injured. If he was standing, then maybe things wouldn't be as bad as Lance had conceived them in his head.

 

Keith whirled around almost immediately to shout at the guards who’d thrown him in, the blindfold still tied tight around his face with a dark bruise beginning to form underneath it, but the Commander walked into the cell after him and struck him hard across the face before he could say anything. Keith dropped to his knees with a shocked yelp of pain.

 

Lance jumped, ready to leap to his feet, but froze when the Commander’s eyes flicked over to him, sharp and calculating. He then turned back to Keith who was hunched over on his knees, a hand clenched in  fist on the floor in front of him.

 

“Your usefulness is limited, little Blade.” The Commander growled “There are plenty of you out in the galaxy, like little pests.”

 

Lance watched Keith’s jaw clench and he prayed, _prayed_ , the other paladin wouldn’t lash out again.

 

“You were wrong not to take our offer. We won’t be so kind as to make it again.”

 

Lance watched with bated breath as Keith’s throat worked, but the other paladin said nothing. The Commander lingered for only a moment longer before he finally turned and left. He gave Lance one more calculating look before he left, making Lance’s stomach turn uncomfortably from the weight of it.

 

“Damn. Those guys sure know how to pack a punch,” Keith said dryly. He got up to his feet, bracing himself against his knee before he staggered over to the wall and slumped down against it. “Popped me in a healing pod though when I started coughing up blood. I guess a rib punctured something after a few punches.”

 

Lance tried not to panic at the image of Keith choking on his own blood in the middle of a circle of Galra.

 

Across the room, Keith found the edge of the food tray Lance had left and he pulled it closer. “Hey, you still with me in here?” He asked slowly after a moment, nervousness seeping into his voice.

 

Lance shook his head to clear it, cursing himself. He reached out and knocked once on the wall next to him and watched as Keith visibly relaxed.

 

“Good,” He said and then began eating the food goo.

 

While he ate, Lance tried to asses his injuries from what he could see. Most of it looked superficial, there was bruising across his face and a black eye, there was cut across the side of his nose, and another on his forehead, trickling out from under his dark hair. All in all, Lance had thought it was going to be much worse.

 

He thought back to what the Commander had said about his offer. Maybe job interviews with the Galra didn’t require beating the complete shit out of someone. He doubted they’d be so nice in the future.

 

He needed to focus on getting Keith out of here. Fast.

 

————————————

Over the next few days Lance desperately tried to wrack his brain to plot Keith’s escape, but it was almost entirely useless. There were guards stationed outside their door at all times and the only time the door actually opened was when the Galra came for one of them.

 

Thrice they took Keith. Of course, they wanted information. Each time Lance cursed himself for being able to do nothing when they came storming into the room, heaving Keith onto his feet before he knew what was happening and dragging him away. And each time Lance’s heart always felt frozen cold in his chest until Keith returned with huge blooming bruises and deep cuts and a wheezy rasp to his breathing. It didn’t help that Keith never made it easy for himself. No matter how hard they hit he always came back swearing and shouting and refusing to just _shut the fuck up_ until the guards had enough and inevitably beat him to the ground.

 

Everytime it happened Lance had a near aneurysm. If he wasn’t already incapacitated, Lance would’ve hit Keith over the head himself just for the off-chance the idiot might learn the meaning of self-preservation.

 

From Lance, all the Galra wanted was Red. The druids were usually the ones that came from him. They took him to a large empty hangar with giant metal doors to perform their magic and they never spoke a word to him. They tried all kinds of spells during these sessions, pumping Lance full of excruciating magic, sometimes trying to dig out his paladin bond, and sometimes just to vent out their frustration. They usually worked until the Lance’s muscles began to spasm and he would collapse to the floor, convulsing.

 

“Perhaps, it is not a matter of the bracelet or our magic. Perhaps the lion merely broken the connection itself?” one of the druids had asked during a particularly painful session. The question did not bode well for Lance. He knew their chance of getting Red was the only reason they were keeping him alive. But he was also too busy not vomiting into his mask as he laid crumpled on the floor to really care that the moment.

 

The head druid had looked down to Lance. Lance did his best to glare back despite his violent shivering. “Perhaps,” They conceded icily, turning their gaze back up to the others. “But the Commander grows impatient. We will continue.”

 

Lance didn’t get another second to prepare before the pain began again.

 

Keith always got really antsy when Lance came back, which was understandable since Lance could never really clearly answer him when he asked if he was okay. Keith didn’t try to approach him once Lance was returned to their cell after the time Lance had thrown his water cup at him in a desperate attempt to keep him away. Still, Keith was always anxious, Lance could tell, even through the hazy fog of pain the druids always left behind, but there was little he could do to comfort the other.

 

It was after one of these sessions that Keith started talking. It was an odd coping mechanism, one Lance definitely hadn’t expected from the Red paladin, but Lance also found it comforting to finally have something else to fill the silence, so he didn’t dwell on the weirdness of it for too long.

 

Keith quietly told stories about earth. He always took the time to explain small details as he went, like what trees were, and what a desert was, the things a normal alien wouldn’t know. It was some sort of ironic role reversal, Lance being the silent one while Keith talked, but Lance didn’t think about that while he listened.  Keith had an affinity for the desert, as it turned out. Lance could tell because he always grew wistful and almost poetic when he described his days in the sand or the heat on his skin.

 

Lance hung onto to almost every word Keith said. It felt like a private journey into the life and times of Keith Kogane. He told stories from his childhood, from when we was with a nice foster family, where he’d been allowed to adopt a stray cat that he’d named Spoon. He talked about Shiro alot too, and all the shit that Keith had put him through as a young teenager. Shiro apparently had always had the patience of a saint.

 

Learning this all, it briefly occurred to him that this was a huge breach in Keith’s privacy. He didn’t know this was _Lance_ he was spilling all these tales to, his childhood rival and oh yeah, the betrayer of Voltron. But usually when Keith began his stories, Lance was already out of his mind after a session with the druids, enough so that he couldn’t really bring himself to dwell in his shame as he listened to Keith’s quiet voice.

 

Keith’s stories weren’t anything fantastic, or that particularly interesting, often they just came up on a particular train of through Keith was on, or as an off-hand memory. But they way he talked about them to the silence of the room in that calming rasp, Lance often found himself closing his eyes and imagining little Keith discovering lizards under rocks, or making vegetable soup for the first time. It brought a stability back to Lance that he felt like he’d been missing ever since he got there, though he didn’t understand why.

 

Keith never talked for long and he only did it at random, sporadic moments, but that didn’t stop Lance from hanging off of his every word. Keith had always seemed distant, untouchable, the galaxy’s golden boy who could care less about such a title. But with each new story, with each new fact Lance learned that Keith was actually just a pretty normal person.

 

Belatedly, Lance realized that this was the most information he’d ever actually learned about Keith since he’d known him in the garrison, the information he’d learned in their gloomy shared cell.

 

Also belatedly, Lance realized that Keith would be a really easy person to fall in love with.

 

When he first had the thought, Lance wondered if it was a side effect of being trapped in a cell for so long,- Except no, because he’d always felt this way towards Keith. There’d always been this drive that Lance had to just be close to him and the itch under his skin to complain about him so he could just talk about him. And it had evolved from that into Lance wanting to be _important_ to him. Lance thought back to how hard he’d tried to be there for Keith once Shiro had left, how easy it had been for him to drop the facade of anger at being passed up as the black paladin and just be there for Keith. And then how devastated he’d been when the Keith had decided to leave their team.

 

So it was then, in their tiny, quiet and damp Galra prison cell, with both of them held captive and their chances of escape dwindling down near zero, that Lance finally realized, _oh shit_ -

 

He’d always been in love with Keith.  

 

————————————————————————

 

Lance scrambled backwards against the grip of the Commander’s hands as he hauled him up, out of his sleep and onto to his feet.

 

Two successive punches hit Lance’s face. The first shattered the mask on his face. The second  finally set the bone in his shoulder back into place with a deep grind and a loud ‘pop’, and also shattered his nose.

 

“Fuck!” Lance near screamed, his voice breaking in agony and now unmuffled as his mask down away from his face in pieces. The Commander didn’t care. He let go of his grip on Lance’s shoulder and tossed him to the ground.

 

Lance didn’t even register the impact when he fell, he couldn’t think past the blinding in his face and now shoulder.

 

Keith shouted from somewhere near Lance’s head. “Stop it!”

 

“Be quite, _boy,_ now is not your turn to speak.”

 

A hand gripped Lance’s throat for the second time in _way_ too short of a time period and _lifted_ before slamming him back down into the floor. Stars exploded in his eyes at the pain in the back of his skull. Through the in his ringing ears he heard Keith shout again and then the resounding crack of something else being hit. Keith’s body crumpled down next to Lance and Lance just hoped that they hadn’t broken Keith’s ribs again because they’d already proven there was just no way he could help fix those.

Knowing Keith was just gonna get right back up if he didn’t do something, Lance made himself move. He rolled over on his side and spit past the blood that was in his mouth and covering his face. He forced himself to speak. “What do you want?”

 

Behind him, he could feel Keith still immediately.

 

He didn’t know whether to be grateful or not that the galra probably wouldn’t let Keith out right kill him right now.

 

“It’s been weeks, tell us why we still cannot cannot penetrate your bond of quintessence with the Red Lion”

 

Despite himself, Lance scoffed. “I don’t know, are you guys really trying that hard? Is this usually something that you’re good at?”

 

A huge hand wrapped itself around Lance’s jaw and lifted him forward until the Commander was towering over him, leaning into his space. The grip tightened to the point where Lance wondered if he was going to have to live in this cell with a broken jaw after this.

 

“Enough. Games,” The Commander hissed with enough severity in his voice that Lance’s blood ran cold.

 

Despite himself, Lance continued. “Look man,” he said, voice pitched high from the fear in his chest, “I don’t even know why you're trying in the first place. You’ll never get to Red, she’s with Voltron and there’s only two people in the galaxy who can-“ Lance shut up almost immediately as panic ran through him. He’d said too much.

 

The Commander filled in the blanks on his own.

 

“There are _two_ red paladins then?” He realized. “That explains why one as useless as you are was piloting one of the lions to begin with.” He let go of Lance, letting the blue paladin fall back to the ground with a heavy thud and stepping away from him.

 

“You’re plan seriously sucks.” Lance bit out, cornered and desperate “What are you going to do? Search the entire galaxy and try to capture both the Red Lion and-“ The Commander struck him across his face hard enough it made Lance’s vision go white. The pain made his stomach clench and he probably blacked out for a few minutes because the next thing he knew the galra Commander standing over his form sprawled on the ground, watching him with a lethal look. “You really are the dumbest paladin. It is so obvious and still, you do not know” he said evenly. He then leaned closer, to hiss words Lance could have prayed to everything he knew to have them say safely hidden within the confines of his own nightmares. “We already have the Red Lion.”

 

\-------------------------------------------------------

 

Lance laid there for a long time drifting in and out of consciousness while the sound of wheezing breaths filled the air.

 

The words he’d said to the Galra Commander played over and over again in his head. How could he be so _stupid_. He’d told them there was a second red paladin and there has to be some loose lipped alien not too far away that could describe Keith to them and there weren’t many people out in the galaxy running around with mullets so the odds of the Commander putting two and two together were honestly terrifying.

 

Lance’s heart began racing and the panic was enough to bring him back to the surface of consciousness with a shuddering gasp of breath.

 

It actually took him a moment to realize the wheezing sounds he’d been hearing weren’t actually coming from him.

 

_Keith._

 

Lance sat up and spun around faster than he should have with the amount of head trauma he’d just sustained, a few drops of blood fall from his face and splatter across the floor. His vision was swimming but he forced himself to focus on Keith.

 

Keith was still hunched over on his side close to where Lance had collapsed. His shoulders were heaving and his whole body was shaking and Lance realized he wasn’t wheezing. He was crying. Keith was open mouth, face twisted, crying. Tear tracks ran through the grime on his skin out from under his blindfold.

 

Quietly, because he was still so fucking scared, Lance said very carefully, “ Keith.”

 

Keith’s body tensed. Lance watched as he struggled to swallow down the noises he’d been making. Resolutely, he said nothing. But Lace could also see his flinch of pain as he tried to keep his curled up weight off his ribs and alleviate the pain in his chest.

 

“Keith, please your”- He choked. Dread coursed through him as tried to swallow past the fear in his throat to continue “Your ribs, they’re hurt again.” He reached forward to try and help Keith out of his uncomfortable position, but Keith flinched away before he could even touch him. He hauling in a shaky breath that had to hurt in order to grit out with lethal intensity, “Don’t fuckin touch me.”

 

Lance snapped his hands back to himself. Hurt boiled like dark water within him and then the panic.

 

Keith was going to hurt himself.

 

Keith could die if he punctured a lung again and if Keith died there would be no one to pilot the Red Lion, no one to pilot the Black Lion if Shiro couldn’t, one less member of the blade.

 

And Lance, good old useless Lance, he couldn’t do anything to help him.

 

Keith would rather die than let Lance touch him.

 

Lance cursed himself and his luck.  Why hadn’t Keith just stayed put? He had no idea who he was standing up for. Why had he even gotten involved?

 

Because it was Keith and  of course he was ready to lay down his life for a stranger he didn’t even know.

 

How stupid his must feel that it was Lance he’d tried to defend.

 

Lance couldn’t make himself leave without trying to help Keith somehow, work him down from the clear edges of a panic attack he was trying so hard to hide.

 

“There’s a fingerprint sensor,” Lance said quietly to the air between them, “On the top right of your blindfold. Your galra genes might be enough to trigger it.” His voice came out distant as the weight of the situation truly settled within him. It left him feeling hopeless and helpless.

 

When Keith didn’t move, Lance finally forced himself to get to his feet. His movements were shaky and uncoordinated as his head spun violently, but he managed to force himself to walk back to the other side of the room, as far away from Keith as he could get, trying to give the other paladin his space.

 

Lance resettled with his back against the wall gingerly, trying to avoid disturbing his shoulder or his neck in a way that disturbed the line of both the new and old hand shaped bruises around it. His head was throbbing and it was only getting worse as Lance’s inner turmoil bubbled up within him.

 

God, he really was the most useless thing to ever try to save the galaxy. He should have known the moment they’d found Blue that this was wrong for him. He should have left when he still had the chance. If only he’d left. If only he’d let himself die. If he wasn’t there he wouldn’t have told them about Keith. They wouldn’t know to start looking for the second red paladin.

 

Lance’s hysteria made his throat tighten despite the pain of the bruising around it. Panic clenched in his stomach for one too many times and that accompanied by the dizziness and nausea from his injuries was enough to make him heave. The pain that flared up in his throat as a result was so excruciating that he ended up crying out as he vomited all the water he’d drank and the small bites of food goo he’d ate over the past few days onto the floor. Lance heaved the dry contents of his stomach until it felt like his ribs were on the verge of breaking and then he forced himself to swallow the reflex down. Once he was done, he forced himself to move further down the wall, away from the puddle as it trickled slowly down into the drain on the floor.

 

Even though his throat was still on fire, he still managed to choke out an apology. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to Keith as he huddled in on himself, his blood stained lips brushing against the tattered fabric of his flight suit on his knees as he spoke. “I’m just- I’m really fucking sorry.”

 

When two trays of food came later, startling Lance out of a half slumber and reigniting the painful pressure in his head, Lance made no move towards it.

 

Maybe it was because he just vomited, maybe it was all the guilt he felt about Keith, but either way, Lance ignored both the food and the water, paying no mind to just how dry his mouth felt. Lance buried his throbbing face against his knees again and forced himself to fall back asleep again.

 

\-----------------------------------------

 

Lance woke up to something wet sliding across his face. It was probably just his nose starting to bleed again. Lance didn’t bother to open his eyes. The pressure from the swelling hadn’t lessened in the time between consciousness and it was making his face feel numb.

 

He was also on his side now, lying on the cool hard ground of the cell.

 

While his head still swam and burst with occasional pain, his body felt slow and sluggish like all his energy had been drained out of him. It was a different sluggish he’d felt previously from not eating. He felt too hot. He felt like his body was breaking.

 

Some of the new blood on his face trickled into his mouth when he groaned in pain. Except, it wasn’t actually blood, it was water. Lance let the cool trickle of moisture settle against his tongue to soothe at least some of the paper dryness that has permeated his mouth.

 

Something cool and wet again dragged across the skin of his mouth.

 

What the _fuck._

 

Despite the swelling from his nose making the skin around his eyes ache, Lance struggled them open.

 

Keith was sitting there, awkwardly hunched over his face with a look of intense concentration on his face. When he noticed Lance’s gaze he said, “They threw in a bucket of medical supplies when they saw you and took the blindfold off”

 

Keith’s words were hard to process past the ringing in his ears. Lance could only make himself sluggishly blink for a moment.

 

After a while Keith wrung out the washcloth he hailed and dipped it back into a bowl of water sitting near his knee and tried to get back to wiping the blood off of Lance’s face.

 

Lance groaned against the action and brought a hand up to sluggishly try to push away Keith’s hand from his face.

 

He didn’t deserve this. Keith shouldn’t be near him. Keith didn’t need to feel bad for not helping him.

 

“Stop it,” Keith said shortly, swatting Lance’s hands out of the way impatiently. “You’ve got some explaining to do and I’m not letting you die until this all makes sense”

 

Keith reached around himself and produced a cup of water. “Here drink this.”

 

Lance looked down at the straw and then looked away.

 

Keith growled and forced the straw tip even closers. “Drink. Lance.”

 

The first few sips were bliss down the back of his parched throat and despite nausea still heavy in his stomach, Lance managed to down the entire glass.

 

“Good, now, I think you have a fever because you’re dehydrated.” Keith moved the glass and the cloth out of the way before he shuffled even closer into Lance’s space and set about fiddling with the remainder of the mask still strapped into Lance’s face. Lance didn’t realize until he heard something click and the metal started pulling away that some of the edges and shards of it had dug into his face when he’d been punched earlier.

 

Keith hissed to himself as he pulled part of the edge of the mask out from where it had dug into lance’s skin.

 

Once that was gone he went about wiping up the last of the blood that had welled in the space between the broken mask and Lance skin.

 

All the while Lance was drifting in an out of consciousness, not really able to keep track of Keith’s motions between waves of cognizance as the other man prodded at his face continuously. Eventually Keith seemed satisfied with his work and sat back. He wrung out the dark pink cloth he’d been using and set it back into the bucket of medical supplies. Lance forced himself to come back to awareness then, knowing that Keith wasn’t going to give him a chance to explain himself twice.

 

“Can you talk now” Keith asked from across the space between them. Distantly, Lance noticed he’d also bandaged his ribs.

 

Lance nodded and then cleared his throat. His voice sounded like sandpaper and gravel when he spoke, but he continued regardless, “What is it you want to know?”

 

Keith sat back from next to Lance’s with his back against the nearby wall and leveled him with an intense expression. “Start from the beginning”

 

Lance licked his lips and tried.

 

“The Galra had a weapon that was going to wipe out Voltron and I just…” Lance took a deep breath and heaved a sigh. “I can’t fly like you, Keith, and can’t fix things like Pidge or build things like Hunk. All I could think to do at the moment was convince them to leave and the only way to do that was to convince them that they could win something bigger.”

 

“So you bartered the Red Lion? Then why didn’t you know that it was here?” Keith asked.

 

Lance flinched at that. “The Galra were never supposed to get her. I told her to leave. I shut her out. She’d done it before, flying on her own and everything to get to you.”

 

“You idiot,” Keith said, “that’s because i was in danger”

 

“Our bond wasn’t as strong as yours!” He said back, frustrated. “She promised me that she’d leave.”

 

“Of course she didn’t leave,” Keith exclaimed, clearly frustrated as well, “You were walking onto a Galra battle cruiser.”

 

Lance swallowed and cast his gaze to the ground. When he spoke again, it was quiet, slow, his voice shaking from the tension. “I just...I just thought,” He was crying, he realized. Tear tracked through the blood caked into swollen skin of his face and dripped down onto the floor. Keith was watching him intently, waiting for him to continue. “Red would know that Voltron was more important…”

 

“Than what, Lance?” Keith demanded immediately. “Your life?”

 

Lance sunk his teeth into lip only to wince away as it broke the skin open again. A sob worked it way up in the back of his throat and Lance struggled to breath around it. He nodded, not looking up from his hands. The abused skin on his face grew hot from embarrassment as Keith breathed, “ _Lance…”_

 

Lance shut his eyes cleared his throat. “That’s kinda the crux of it, isn’t it” he said blinking the tears away. “You know, we gotta do everything to save the universe, down to the last of it, and then when push comes to shove...You just gotta make sure your best survive and that...they don’t try to follow you.”

 

“You thought that we…” Keith realized.

 

Lance looked down and away again, ashamed.

 

“No one believed it.” He said. Then grabbed Lance’s good shoulder tightly, insistently. “Lance listen to me, no one believed you would betray Voltron, but no one knew why you did it either.”

 

Lance didn’t have anything to say to that because there really wasn’t anything he _could_ say. He didn’t know if he believed Keith. Keith looked at him like he didn’t know if he believed that Lance believed him.

 

“Why haven’t you been eating?” Was Keith’s tactful way of changing one excruciating conversation out for another. “They said it when they brought the food in, to make sure you eat.”

 

“Eating... makes things too real sometimes” Lance said quietly. It was only a half lie.

 

Keith didn’t look like he liked the answer, it didn't lessen the intensity of his gaze, but he continued on regardless. “Why the mask?”

 

Lance looked at the shards still sitting on the floor nearby, “I, ah, wouldn’t shut up.” He supplied, not looking away from them.

 

Keith snorted at that. It was painfully humorless. “You always had a hard time figuring out when to stop talking” he said in a weak attempt at lightening the mood.

 

Lance smiled grimly to himself. “Something like that,” he muttered.

 

Keith looked down towards the shards of the mask and then back to Lance’s shadowed face, a puzzle in his expression but he must’ve seen Lance’s reluctance to go any further and thankfully, he chose not to push it for now.

 

Keith turned to dip his hands into the bucket of water he’d left the rag in, probably realizing he had a Lance’s blood still on his fingertips.

 

Lance watched him for a moment before suddenly remembering that, _oh yeah,_ there was something he’d been meaning to talk to Keith about.

 

“Keith you have _got_ to stop provoking the guards like that. You have to be at your best in order to get out of here and you can’t do that if they break your ribs every time they open the door.”

 

“You’re talking like your not coming with me.” Keith said warily to his hands as he scrubbed at his finger tips.

 

Lance waited one breath, and then another, knowing Keith was not going to like this answer. “Red only needs one paladin” He said carefully, “and she’s got you...”

 

Keith’s head immediately snapped up to him and he glared. “Lance, seriously, _enough_ with this self-sacrificing _bullshit-"_

 

“We’re in a _war_ Keith people have to make sacrifices” He hissed back, trying to lace his voice with all the vehemence he could muster because Keith _had_ to understand this. He _had_ to be the one to get out of here.

 

Keith shook his head shortly, jaw going tight. He glared past Lance’s shoulder for a second as he pressed his lips together in a clear a moment of irritation. Eventually he turned back to him and said with a dangerous severity, “Get one thing straight here, McClain, I’m _not_ leaving here without you.”

 

“Keith you can’t honestly say that”-

 

“I’m not fucking leaving here without you so you better figure out a way for both of us to get out of this because I.” He slammed his hand down against the floor. “Am not. Leaving. You.”

 

There was silence between them after Keith’s outburst. Keith was breathing hard, still pinning Lance down under the weight of his intense expression.  Both of them were trembling.

 

“What about the rest of the team, Keith” Lance finally asked.

 

“What about them? None of them would leave you either-”

 

“Keith,” Lance interrupted, so, so scared to finally say it out loud. “I shot them Keith. You say no one believed but you weren’t there. They’re...They’re gonna kill me when they see me”

The words hung between them for a very long moment. 

 

“Shiro will give you a chance,” Keith said, his voice was small and he swallowed dryly. “I gave you a chance”

 

“Shiro’s not-“ Lance stuttered, his breathing caught. He drew a deep  breath, fighting back his rising hysterics before he tried again- “I hurt them, Keith. I hurt the team, my family.” He turned to look back at the red paladin, eyes wide with the guilt that’d been weighing on his shoulders ever since he first arrived.

 

“I don’t know if they’ll forgive me and honestly, I just”- He had to pause to breathe. “I just don’t- I don’t even know if I want them to…” He choked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't ask me how that mask works because honestly I don't think I know. I think I left a few other plot holes in here...I know they're out there… But alas... The rest of this story is written ( I say once again) I plan to ride this high as far as it will take me, so hopefully I can have it done soon. I do apologize as well that I never answer any comments. They make my day, I swear, and I by no means mean to take advantage of them, but I've been fighting with this thing for months now, and every time I get a comment I'm like D: because I haven't finished writing it yet. I'll do better, I promise. Thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Most of this is already written so I'm hoping to get the rest of this up pretty soon.


End file.
